The Holocaust in the American Imagination 1945-1978

The image of the Holocaust in the American imagination,
which culminated in the placement of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C., has experienced
a definite ebb and flow in the years following World War II.
Attempting to define the place of the Holocaust in the American
zeitgeist is an exercise in the analysis of memory
construction. During the 1930's and early 1940's, Americans
attempted to suppress the images of terror and oppression that
were steadily leaking from Nazi Germany. Dismissed as propaganda
by many, the reality of the death camps was an unimaginable open
secret during the war years. After the camps were exposed,
Americans were appalled, experiencing (wrote historian Robert
Abzug) "an almost unbearable mixture of empathy, disgust, guilt,
anger and alienation" (Linenthal 5). This outpouring of feeling
was channeled into other sources and other
fears.

After Allied troops liberated the death camps at the end
of World War II, Americans were deluged with images of death and
Nazi atrocities. This sparked a wave of fear and revulsion, but
was soon subsumed into terror of Cold War nuclear annihilation.
The American public transferred the feelings evoked by footage of
concentration camps into fear of the bomb in the post-war period.
The Holocaust was not prominent in the American consciousness
because it was too unbearable to contemplate or assimilate into a
rational framework. The impulse to forget was too strong, and
the threat of nuclear extermination too immediate. West Germany
became an ally in the Cold War, and the Holocaust was virtually
forgotten in the 1950's.

This forgetfulness was a temporary sublimation, however, and
images of the Holocaust in the American imagination began to
recur. In 1961, Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann went to trial in
Israel. The proceedings were publicized world-wide, and more
than a hundred survivors testified in Jerusalem. Dorothy
Rabinowitz analyzed the effect of the trial, writing that for
many it was a "galvanizing force, bringing [American Jews] face
to face with emotions theretofore repressed, with events whose
full scope and reverberations had been kept, rumbling, beneath
the surface of consciousness" (Linenthal 9).

The most salient event in the resurrection of the Holocaust in
American memory, however, occurred in 1967 with the Israeli
victory of the Six-Day War. The president of Egypt was quoted as
desiring the extermination of the Jewish people, raising the
unavoidable specter of a second Holocaust, but with one crucial
difference-- the Jews effected a resounding victory. This
provided the missing link in the story of the Holocaust-- that of
destruction followed by redemption; the creation and fortitude of
the state of Israel. The vision of the Holocaust was much easier
to countenance if it was followed by the establishment of a
Jewish nation.

The next event which spurred interest in the history of the
Holocaust was the Vietnam War. Anti-war activists used images of
Nazi atrocities to link the United States with the perpetrators
of the Holocaust, equating the soldiers at My Lai with storm
troopers. The lack of American action to destroy the camps
during World War II was compared to the passivity of the public
regarding military action in Vietnam. At the same time,
universities all over the country began teaching courses focussed
on the Holocaust. Raul Hilberg argues that "After the
disorientation of Vietnam, [American students] wanted to know the
difference between good and evil. The Holocaust is the
benchmark, the defining moment in the drama of good and evil. . .
Against this single occurrence, one would assess all other deeds.
And so, memorialization began in earnest" (Linenthal 11).

The place of the Holocaust in the American consciousness was
now firm. In 1978, NBC aired a miniseries, The Holocaust,
which attracted an audience of 120 million people. Film
historian Judith Doneson asserted that "people in Idaho, North
Dakota, New York-- throughout the United States-- were now
initiated, albeit in a simplified manner, into the world of Nazi
genocide against the Jews" (Linenthal 12). Several weeks later,
President Jimmy Carter announced the creation of a commission on
the Holocaust, charged with deciding on a suitable American
memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The fifteen members
would attempt to plan a physical embodiment of the lessons of
inhumanity.